Commentary on comics, games, books, and their occasional intersection with politics and other serious business.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Gul Dukat on the Battlefield

So, why not make Magic cards for Gul Dukat? He undergoes a lot of changes over the course of Deep Space Nine.

Before we meet him, he in charge of the occupation of Bajor. Oppression is kind of his middle name. Which is good because that only leaves his first name as a complete mystery.I'd like him to tap down more than one guy to represent more of the mass oppression of the occupation, but that'd be a bit much.

This is the Dukat we first meet. He's securely in the Cardassian fold and okay with an oppressive, cutthroat system as long as he's got a shot at cutting some throats himself. His body should be a bit bigger given his second ability but the Megrim ability plus the card draw lockdown are pretty strong against certain decks.

Remember when Dukat was a pirate with a kick-ass Klingon Bird of Prey? Those were weird times. Anyway, he's a bit more scrappy and not at all interested in the system. This is as cool and punk as Dukat gets and he was still a creepy, misogynistic bag of dicks. He could've gotten away with being a 2/2 given that he can't block, but the steady decline of his power over these three cards was something I was really fond of.

Not even a dickbag joke on this card. I hate these half-lords as much as the next guy, but Dukat only cares about one thing. My alternative build was a complicated thing where creatures could exile a single non-creature permanent if they were unblocked. I liked the reference to the start of The Dominion War, but I couldn't make it work without using Haunt, which everyone hates.

"Waltz" Dukat is the greatest. He's a paper-thin, nothing-held-back, all-in Hyphen-Crazy McCrazyPants. His activation cost probably should've been 1BR or 2BR, but what are you gonna do?

Casting cards from exile is generally a blue, mono-red, or mythic rare thing, but it fits the phenomenal cosmic powers he gets from the Pah-wraiths. It also works with the definitely-black drawback. I could have cranked it up as the exile happening on each upkeep, but that's a big, big penalty in multiplayer. That's use-or-lose up to eight cards every turn. Even if I gave those cards flash I'd still have to make him into a really, really aggressive card for that to balance out.

At the beginning of each upkeep, exile the top card of your library.

You may play cards exiled this turn by Dukat, of Course He Causes The Apocalypse from exile as though they had flash. Spells cast this way cost 1R less to cast.